I have to say, I don’t like rats. Don’t like them at all.
We get a little package of cigarettes inside the accessory pack of our C rations — along with salt, sugar, coffee, matches, cream substitute, gum, and some toilet paper. (Not nearly enough, if you’re sick from your malaria pills, but, okay.) The guys who smoke’ll trade just about anything to get those cigarettes.
Except for me, Bebop’s the only other one in the squad who doesn’t smoke. Says he won’t put anything in his lungs that might screw up his horn playing. Turns out, he’s a really serious jazz musician and wants to go pro when he gets out of the Marines. That’s why he’s always playing around with that mouthpiece — so he doesn’t lose his embouchure. Yeah, it’s actually spelled that way — I had him write it down for me. Then, I double-checked it with the Professor, who said, yeah, I guess so.
If I’m going to be writing all this stuff down, maybe I should ask my mother if she can send me a little dictionary. Might as well try to spell things right, if I can.
The platoon doc just came by, handing out vitamins and all. He’s this pale, skinny guy, with glasses that are taped on both sides, but everyone says he’s really brave when things get hot. Marines don’t have their own medics, so Navy corpsmen get assigned to us. I think they’d probably rather be on their ships, but here he is. Bebop took out his mouthpiece and reed, and got Doc to pour some hydrogen peroxide on them. He says they get all mildewed, because of the weather. Not that he probably wouldn’t stick it in his mouth, anyway, but might as well try to keep it clean, right?
Hollywood offered me a can of pound cake for my pack of Newports — and hey, I’m not stupid, I took it.
“So, what’s your excuse?” he asked, lighting up. “Real Marines smoke.”
“Football,” I said. “I got a couple scholarships waiting at home, and no way I’m screwing up my wind.”
Smedley was cleaning his M60 — which he does about ten times a day — but he definitely perked up. “You play football?”
I just knew that guy was another football player. There’s guys who were on their high school teams, and then there’s guys who are players. Totally different animals. “Linebacker,” I said. “And tight end, on the other side of the ball.” I went to a small enough high school so that a lot of us got to play both offense and defense. No argument from me! Just meant more time on the field.
“You any good?” he asked, real suspicious. I’m just over six feet, and a hundred eighty pounds, but he’s got about three inches, and maybe forty or fifty pounds on me.
I actually think I’m really good, but you can’t come right out and admit that. It isn’t cool. “On the sea, or on the land, I got the situation well in hand,” I said.
Mooch laughed right away, and then some of the others got it, too.
“You are some kind of sucker, Boston,” Bebop said.
Well, that didn’t sound too good. “How come?” I asked, eating my pound cake. I should probably have saved it — but I was too hungry.
“’Cause you just gave yourself your own nickname, moron,” he said.
Oh, shoot — he was right. I am a sucker. I have a feeling it’s going to stick, too. Forever.
Forget Boston, forget Mick. Now everybody calls me . . . Mighty Mouse.
Swell.
December 29, 1967
Haven’t written for a couple of days, because we’ve been busy digging in and going on patrols and everything. The platoons are all going to take turns going on sweeps of the area, and today was ours. On days your platoon doesn’t patrol, you’re taking turns doing things like night ambushes, or LPs. If you’re inside the wire at night, you take bunker guard duty. That’s two hours on, two hours off, until morning. So, no matter how the schedule works out, you don’t end up getting much sleep. The patrol schedule varies, but there’s always at least one platoon up here on the hill to keep the area secured. The skipper seems to be really fair about how he divides things up, though, so can’t complain about that.
That’s not true — we all complain a lot, but nothing out of the ordinary. Our packs are too heavy, we’re tired, there aren’t any girls around — the usual stuff. If someone put me in charge, I don’t think I’d worry unless my Marines stopped complaining. Then I’d know something was up.
Girls. There’s a depressing thought. Everyone else seems to have a girlfriend — or a wife. Mooch looks about ten years old, and he’s married. It’s not like I ever had trouble getting dates — I was cocaptain of the football team, and hit cleanup on the baseball team, so I went out a lot. I just never fell hard for anyone.
Big lie. I did. I was just too stupid to ask her out. Her name’s Audrey, and she went to my high school and goes to our church and everything. She’s really smart, and didn’t exactly hang out with the cheerleaders and girls like that. And she’s pretty, but not tight-sweater vavoom pretty! So I wasted a bunch of time thinking it wouldn’t look cool if I asked her out or anything. That the other guys would make fun of me for dating a brain.
Hey, for all I know, she would have said no, anyway. I was a big, dumb, loud football player — not her type. She went to the prom with this guy Keith, who was on the chess team. Math team. Debate team. Not exactly the kind of teams that would want me. Not that I’d want them — but, it’d go both ways, for sure. I think he went to Columbia. I know that he didn’t get into Harvard, because he was really mad about it.
He was one of the people who really gave me grief when he heard I was joining the Marines. I’ve known him since third grade, so he must have figured I wouldn’t mind if he told me I was an idiot and wasting my life for nothing. How wrong the war is, that soldiers are just tools of the government, and a whole bunch of stuff like that. I just said, hey, my father served, my grandfather served, my uncles served — it’s what Americans are supposed to do. If they ask, you go and serve your country — it’s our duty. He thinks the best way to serve your country is to let the government know when they’re doing something wrong. I don’t know. I would have hit him, but he’s half my size, and besides, we were in Cub Scouts together.
And he’s probably still dating Audrey. Lucky jerk.
Enough about all that. The patrol today wasn’t too bad. I was scared the whole time, waiting to get attacked, but we didn’t have any contact at all. There were some trails, which seemed to have been used recently, but there was no sign of actual people. I walked either behind, or in front of, Shadow all day, because he wanted to watch and see how I do things. Every so often, he’d check and make sure the selector switch on my rifle was set on safety, or that I wasn’t walking too close to anyone, and that kind of thing. It’s called keeping your intervals, when you spread out like that. You’re supposed to stay far enough apart so that if a grenade or mortar round lands, a whole bunch of us won’t get killed all at once.
The platoon gunny was watching me, too. He’s this tough old bird named Sampson who fought in Korea and World War II. Chews tobacco, carries a flask, barks at us a lot — everything you expect in a gunny sergeant. You can’t not admire the guy.
The only thing that happened all day was that a guy in the second squad banged into a beehive somehow. His face was so swollen from stings that you couldn’t really see his eyes, and they’d gotten him through his uniform, too. Doc was afraid he might go into shock, so the LT called in a medevac for him. The rest of us got all cut up from walking through the elephant grass, but that’s an everyday thing. Before I got here, you never would have been able to convince me that grass can actually be sharp. But I’ve got the cuts to prove it. It also grows about ten feet high, so you just end up buried in the stuff — can’t even see where you’re going.
When we got back to the hill, there was mail waiting for us. Except that I didn’t get any. Again. Don’t they have my address yet? What’s taking so long? I’ve already sent out about fifteen letters. We don’t have to pay p
ostage — gee, thanks, Uncle Sam! We just write “Free” in the corner of the envelope, where the stamp would go, and drop our letters in the company mailbag. Then, whenever a chopper comes in for resupply, or a medevac, or something, we throw the mailbag on. So, why don’t they write to me already? Don’t they miss me?
Hollywood felt sorry for me, so he let me read his mail with him. Four different girls! And four different kinds of perfume! Wow. Pink stationery, light yellow stationery, stationery with puppies on it, and stationery covered with roses.
“Are you dating all of them?” I asked.
“Sort of,” he said, shuffling through the stack. “But I didn’t get one from Lori today, and I think she’s my favorite.” He handed me the yellow envelope. “Here, read Vicky’s. She always puts in great pictures.”
I opened the letter, and — he wasn’t kidding. Vicky was blonde, and tan, and wearing just about the smallest bikini I ever saw. “How do you keep them all straight?” I asked, checking the photograph from every possible angle. Purely scientific interest, you understand.
Hollywood grinned. “I just use Honey, and Baby, and Darling, when I write,” he said. “That way, I can’t screw up, and use the wrong name by mistake.”
Not the guy you’d want dating your sister, but definitely impressive, no two ways around it. “You’re a god, man,” I said. “An absolute god.”
Funny thing — he didn’t deny it.
December 31, 1967
It’s New Year’s Eve. I’m in Vietnam. Nobody in my family has written to me.
Think that just about says it all for today.
January 1, 1968
We started off the New Year . . . with a patrol. No contact, no sign of any NVA — not even any footprints. Same old, same old. But even I noticed that it seemed a little too quiet. Fewer monkeys chattering, not so many birds. That can’t be a good sign. I happened to meet Shadow’s eyes at one point, and he just looked grim and tapped his nose. In other words, they’re here; he can smell them. We just never actually see them. So far.
The word is, that the NVA is building up thousands of troops somewhere out here, and that sooner or later, they’re going to attack us. They want the main combat base, but they’ll probably take out the hills, first. Which means us and 861, plus the radio platoon up on 950. 881N is still Indian Country. We haven’t found them yet, but — I don’t know. We must be doing all of this patrolling for a reason. If no one was out there, wouldn’t they just ship us someplace else, instead of wasting time here? We’re close enough to the border, so that maybe they’re spending most of their time over in Laos. But then, why did we see all those bunkers and footprints on that five-day sweep? You always hear that the NVA and VC are really into tunnels, so for all I know, they’re underneath us. All this waiting is scary. You wish they’d just make a move, already. Get on with it.
For the first time, I saw a village. It was Bru tribesmen, from the Montagnards, and not at all what I expected. For one thing, some of the women weren’t wearing shirts! And some of the others had their blouses unbuttoned. That is my kind of town. For their culture, it’s completely normal, so I tried to pretend I didn’t even notice.
Not sure how successful I was at that, but I gave it a go.
I’ve seen Vietnamese villages on the news on television, so I pictured little thatch huts and rice paddies and nervous VC sympathizers treating us like an invading army. But these Montagnards were smiling! They actually seemed happy to see us. Most of the men wear loincloths, and carry crossbows, and it all seemed like something out of National Geographic. I wish I’d had a camera, because it was really interesting.
Their houses were built up on stilts; I’m not sure why. To protect them from flooding, during the monsoons? A couple of the children were grabbing at me, and it was making me sort of edgy — until I figured out that they wanted to touch my skin, because it’s white and looks so different, and maybe hold my hand for a minute. When I started thinking of them as enthusiastic little kids, like my niece and nephew, I relaxed. This wasn’t the kind of village where some six-year-old was going to throw a grenade when my back was turned.
I could hear Bebop playing nursery rhymes on his mouthpiece, and a bunch of little kids were watching him with amazement.
“Hey, they like your harmonica!” I said.
He grinned. “Shut up, Mighty Mouse,” he said, and went back to playing.
One thing for sure, the climb back up to 881S after these patrols is tough. It’s really steep, and if there’s been any rain at all, it gets so muddy that sometimes you slide back ten steps for every two steps you take. All I wanted to do when we got back to our bunker was fall down and sleep. I didn’t, because we had to unload some ammo crates and a bunch of other stuff, but I was really dragging. And don’t let anyone tell you that flak jackets and helmets aren’t hot. After spending all day hacking our way through triple-canopy jungle, bamboo, thorns, deep streams, and all that, that final hump straight uphill is a real killer.
At least last night was a little bit fun. Battalion sent out some cans of eggnog, and there was enough so that we all got to have some. Can’t say it was delicious, but who cares? It was eggnog. We would have liked it better, if they’d sent some whiskey to put in the eggnog, but that didn’t keep anyone from drinking it up.
Then, at midnight, the skipper gave the okay for a mad-minute. In other words, we were allowed to fire our weapons like crazy. I blew off two magazines in less than a minute. We also shot up a bunch of flares, and the artillery guys shot off some illumination rounds. It was really loud, because the guys over on 861, and down on the main base, and even over at Lang Vei to our south, were doing the exact same thing. All the red tracers — we always load them into our magazines, every fifth round or so — looked neat slicing through the night. Like tiny little shooting stars, or something.
If the NVA is out there, they must have been really confused to hear us all go crazy like that in the middle of the night. And it was really fun for us. When you think about it, sometimes the whole Marine Corps just seems like Boys with Toys, you know? Big shiny weapons that make really loud noises and we can even make things explode and cool stuff like that. Last night, we got to play with our toys — and nobody got hurt. Sounds like a win-win situation to me.
Hope it’s always that way.
January 2, 1968
I had the worst possible C ration meal tonight — ham with lima beans. Apollo let me borrow some Tabasco sauce, but it didn’t help. I also had some canned white bread, which tastes like glue, even if you heat it up. And applesauce for dessert. Terrible meal, all the way around.
Not that I didn’t finish every bite. Every bite just tasted lousy.
I heated up a can of cocoa after that, and thickened it up a little by adding a packet of cream substitute. While I was drinking it, I was looking at Bebop, trying to figure out what he had written on his helmet. Most guys put their hometowns on the front, and their girlfriends’ names, and stuff like that. But, his had other stuff.
He put down his spoon, halfway through a can of fruit cocktail. “What?”
“Is Trane John Coltrane?” I asked.
Bebop pretended to be shocked, and allowed as how yes, it was.
“So, who’s Jug?” I asked. “And Prez?”
Bebop closed his eyes. “You don’t know the first thing about jazz, do you?”
Hey, I thought I was doing pretty well by guessing Coltrane.
“Don’t even tell me you don’t know who Bird is,” he said.
I don’t know who Bird is.
Bebop groaned and closed his eyes again. In fact, he fell back against some sandbags and covered his face with his arms. “Gene Ammons, Lester Young, Charlie Parker,” he said through his arms. “Coleman Hawkins, Ben Webster, Johnny Hodges.” He lifted one arm enough to look over at me. “Let me know when I hit one you know.”
/>
I gave him an okay sign. He ran through a really long list of names — and I gave him a thumbs-up when he said “Benny Goodman.” I knew Louis Armstrong, too.
“Figures,” he said, and flopped down again.
So I started reeling off football players — throwing in some pretty obscure ones, I have to admit — and he finally raised his thumb when I said, “Johnny Unitas.” Which gave me a chance to point out that he didn’t seem to know a single damn thing about sports.
“Jackie Robinson,” he said. “That’s enough for me.”
So, just to make sure that I had gotten him good and mad, I rattled off about twenty players from the old Negro Leagues — and Satchel Paige was the only one he knew.
Hollywood was listening to all of this, laughing and shaking his head. ‘This is just getting ugly.”
I did have one dumb question left. And I was curious, so I figured I might as well ask. After all, he was already pissed off. “What’s ‘bebop’ mean?”
Bebop groaned, and stamped off into our bunker in disgust.
I really have to get a dictionary one of these days.
January 4, 1968
We had guard duty on the base today, instead of going on patrol, so I spent some down time personalizing my helmet, writing on the cloth camouflage cover with a black pen. I drew a kind of lame picture of Mighty Mouse flying along one side, with his cape whipping out behind him. Then I put “Go, Red Sox!” on the other side.
“What’s BFD?” Apollo asked, when he saw what I had written on the front.
“Boston Fire Department,” I said. “My father’s on the job.”
Into No Man's Land Page 3